


Set, Nine Lives Blade Works

by imprimatur13



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:54:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imprimatur13/pseuds/imprimatur13
Summary: Shirou saves Illya, and she returns the favour.
Relationships: Illyasviel von Einzbern/Emiya Shirou
Kudos: 1





	Set, Nine Lives Blade Works

  
He is standing in front of me. We're stuck in the ditch together, and my heart is pounding out of my chest. Shirou, I need you to win for me. I will never forgive you if you don't.

You've never saved me till now, just like Kiritsugu didn't.

Every second I spent longing for him, to be held by him again, I was comforted by Berserker.

He was the strongest, and he will never be beaten.

And he cared for me when you weren't there, and I was happy with him. He loved me, and I love him.

And now I was so happy to be able to spend this time with you. I never thought I could have the joy of being with you and having Berserker as my Servant at once. Yet you refused to be my Servant.

Even so, I want to be with you. Shirou, I love you.

So why did it have to turn out like this? Berserker doesn't care about me any more, he's been corrupted by the Holy Grail inside of Sakura. But he's still the strongest, and no one can beat him. Not even you, Shirou.

So why are you standing before him? Is it because you don't think you can run?

You probably can't run. He's too fast to run from, and too strong to beat.

So why don't you come back down, so I can at least die in your arms? It would almost be worth it, if you could hold me, and I could pretend that you are saving me from the Berserker who betrayed me, and that you will take me back to my castle afterwards, and live with me in it forever.

I know it's not true, but why can't you let me tell myself that lie?

I get up, and try to call him back.

"Shirou!"

My voice breaks my resolve, and I fight back the tears.

His back is to me, and he doesn't move.

"Illya," he says, teeth gritted, "Get down."

"Shirou!" Why doesn't he understand? "You can't beat him!"

"I know, Illya," he replies. "But I'm going to do it anyway. Get down and leave it to your onii-chan."

'Onii-chan'? Could he... no, there's no way he could know.

I follow his orders, wishing desperately to believe him, even though I know he's wrong, even though I can't stop seeing his body torn into a million pieces by Berserker's axe-sword.

I know there's no way reality can be any worse than what I'm envisioning, so I force my eyes to stay open, and to watch. Maybe Berserker will see my eyes, and that will be enough to free him from Angra Manyu's curse.

I think about the time Berserker saved me from the wolves in the snow. Holding his giant hand with my small, frail one, I felt his pain, and then knew that he protected me because he loved me, not because I forced him with my Command Seals.

I never thought anyone would care about me.

I thought I had to bind those I loved into service for them not to leave me.

Berserker proved me wrong.

So I can't believe that he will be unable to break through Sakura's bonds. Even if it's just for a second, he is the strongest, and I know he can.

"Come on, Berserker."

The tears. Won't you come and wipe them from my eyes?

Here I exist, in this powerful wind. It blows upon me, sharpening me like a sandstorm. In this place there is none but me, for this is the lot of Heroic Spirit EMIYA; after my final sacrifice, there is nothing else left.

The emptiness left by my arm begins to ring in my ears.

Is he coming?

Will he use it?

A smile creeps up my lip.

I feel a disturbance in the flow behind me.

Heh. He's cracked, a mind of cracked steel that will only withstand so much torque before snapping.

If he's here, then there's no going back for him. So, I too will finish my task.

Raising my voice to be heard above the wind -- a quiet breeze for me, but it must be earsplitting for him, the me who is not yet me -- I shout:

"CAN YOU KEEP UP WITH ME?"

Can you put your personal desires aside, sacrificing your life for the greater good. Not for any hope of death, or a desire to run away from your guilt, but having entirely swallowed the curses deep in your soul and conquered them, having loved and lived, will you throw it all away? Not for borrowed ideals, but for pure will?

A voice comes from behind, dry but strong.

"YOU KEEP UP WITH ME-NYA!"

So that's the way it will be?

Even in my wildest dreams, I dared not to unlock the most hidden of all powers given me by the Counter Force. I feared its consequences, feared the possibility that I would be forever unable to save anyone else.

Perhaps this boy doesn't care to save anyone else? Perhaps he is entirely focused on this one moment, this one person?

Then, he truly has surpassed me.

As he vanishes from my realm, my missing arm throbs in the same pain it felt when I first received my Command Seals, all those lives ago.

I close my eyes, and whisper a prayer for his success.

_I am the bone of my sword_   
_Steel is my body, sharpened by wind_   
_I have lived a thousand lives, waiting for the one's arrival_   
_Evading death, and preserving life_   
_Have saved the one and the all_   
_As I pray_   
_UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS_

As the final words leave my lips, I am light. The quiet breeze becomes as nothing, and my body begins to fade. Yet, I feel stronger than ever before.

_Ah. So this is what it is like, to leave the sword for another._

_Thank you, Emiya Shirou._

_I'm relieved now._

$$#$$*#(%&%#%%#%#@(@*#$@!@

$#@@)@(()@#$#

I can't *think*, can't--

#Q*#$(*#*RUOW*

My-- *PoUNDING*

*((*

*arm, raised with sword, and then--

DROP!*

AAARGHGHGHGHG

but in my EYES

hand! SofT!

THE SOFT IS--

pounding... stops!

My eyes can see!

_blink_

In front of me! White!

My hand stretches, picks up white.

It is soft, and light. I throw it up and down. It makes noises, but it is so cute!

Finally... my head is clearing!

The cries of my son who I crushed in my rage, forgetting my own strength, leaving me a crazed husk -- gone!

I love this softness! And now I can see, I know what it is! It is a large white cat, a sword in its hand.

"Nya~~ Stay away from Illya! Nyaaaaa~ *purr*" it says.

Illya?

I look around.

I see a ditch. In the ditch is a white girl, crimson eyes wide in horror.

I know her!

Yes, my soul cries out to me and says 'This is yours! This is your love, the one who would finally grant salvation to you and expiate your sin! Your--!'

"Ill...ya?"

The white girl's eyes, until now paralysed by fear, blink and their moistly nictate lashes beat each other.

"Berserker!"

I drop the cat. There is a shrill cry from it, and I slap it to shut it up.

I lower my hand to the ground. The white girl fits in my palm, like a sheep in my flocks.

Tiny, a fragile lamb.

But I feel her horns.

She stands, hands on hips. "Berserker!" she says. "Do you know what you made Shirou do?"

With my other hand I shrug.

"W-Who Shirou?"

She slaps my wrist, and points to the cat-form on the ground. "*That* Shirou! Because of you, because he thought you might kill me, he used the most forbidden of all projection techniques! He could have *died*! He still might!"

My face hangs in despair. Could I have erred again? Finally returned after these aeons to my senses, and I have hurt the precious one of my heart?

"I'm sorry... what can I do?"

"Don't you dare try to escape by looking down at the ground!" Illya says from my palm, above me. I look up to her. "Bring him back to the mansion! I'll take care of him there."

I nod. Careful to keep Illya safe, I run to the cat, pick it up -- its sleeping voice says "I am the purr of my cat, all my lives are nyaaaaa" -- and I run back to the Einzbern mansion where I was summoned and reborn into this world, by my white saviour. My footfalls uproot trees, but I don't care, as long as I can keep her safe in my arms. I feel her hanging onto me with her little arms, and I want nothing more than to keep her safe forever. If all the pain I endured in life, all the strengthening has led to me being able to do it, well then all those labours were worthwhile for this one moment.

I jump through the wall after arriving at the mansion, holding Illya close to my chest. The cat gets hit by some debris, but I don't care.

I bring them to Illya's room, and she bids me leave them alone.

"Now Berserker, stay outside, and make sure Sella and Leysritt keep their distance! And if you even *hear* that Sakura's coming, show her no mercy. That blob of decaying worms should never see the light again. Make sure you grind every bit of her up into the tiniest pieces, and squeeze out all the blood, so you can find the little Holy Grail fragment. Then I want you to deliver it to me personally so I can spit on it and use it to wipe Shirou's butt after he uses the toilet. Or," she looked at him on the bed, a snot bubble forming on his nostril and being popped by his whiskers, "litter box. Either way. Fuck that bitch."

She slammed the door.

I was just about to start my watch, when the door opened.

Illya's head poked through the opening. "Don't literally fuck her though. She'd probably enjoy it."

The door slammed again, even louder than before.

Illya's hands play upon my face. Like spiders her fingers crawl over my cheeks, my lips, poking inside my mouth. She holds my cheek, whispers. "You're mine now, Shirou."

She kisses my forehead, then like a lilting butterfly, disengages from her achingly close embrace. She regards me with longing.

"What will we do about Sakura, though?" she says, asking me but looking at the ground as she does.

I clear my throat, the dryness rubbing against my uvula. "We'll save her, of course. Though, I wish I knew how. Illya, do you have any ideas? You're a gifted Magus, aren't you?"

"Oh, Shirou," she says, looking at me with pity. "My dear love," she walks back to where I am, in the armchair, bound there by Illya's magic circuits -- so I could heal from the projection I did, fusing myself with the cat I saved as a boy -- and straddles my leg. Her breath against my face is hot.

"I can't have you going off and getting hurt, not after all I did to revive you here. I appreciate your sacrifice for my sake, but it just wouldn't do for you to disappear on me."

She begins to unbutton my shirt.

My heart pounds so fast, it will stop soon, like a furnace overheating. And what is she saying? How can I save Sakura if I'm here?

"I-Illya." I can't speak at all, all the moisture in my body is going south and my throat is a desert wind. "Are you going to send--" her tongue on my neck makes it so hard to concentrate "Ber--serker?"

My shirt is completely open, and she has moved up my thigh and is now...

This is bad.

I can't.

"Ill--"

"Shirou," she kisses my abdominal muscles in between words, "if" _kiss_ "you" _kiss_ "keep" _kiss_ "talking" _kiss_ "you'll force me to do this the difficult way."

I can't move, my arms are like jelly, but I force a hand to Illya's face in a weak farce of resistance.

She stops. She lifts her eyes to me.

"Look at me, Shirou."

I can't look anywhere else, you don't need to tell me that.

She brings her face close to mine.

"I warned you," she says.

Her gaze penetrates me, her Mystic Eyes grab my soul.

Since then I have felt nothing, only the vague unease of being in an oil-slick-covered shell of an egg, like an overgrown bird sweating lard.

Sometimes I hear voices, but always as through a glass darkly.

But, I think I saved Illya.

I think she was happy.

The last thing I remember is the smile on her face after she lifted my limp body from the ground after the Berserker encounter.

I hold onto this image, and it is my only possession.

The only thing that I have gained, and never lost.

And so I curl myself inward, a fetus that will never be born.

**Author's Note:**

> To think the impetus for this was just that cats have nine lives... I blame Prillya. Always blame Prillya. (Chloe is cute. Miyu is also cute.)


End file.
